Hello Again, Friend of a Friend
by Unfocused Shot
Summary: He smiled and replied that he didn't think she would want to talk to him after everything. The shade laughed, released his hand and then wrapped its arms around him. "I'll always want to talk to you."


The more he dreamed, the more he began to resent her presence in them. She was infuriating at times while in other, quieter moments he wanted nothing but to be sitting next to her real self.

He has to correct his thoughts about her whenever she appears. Firmly restating that she was nothing like the genuine article and that if the real Ariadne was standing in front of him she might punch him rather than wrap her arms around him. It had stemmed, he suspected, from rare, natural dream that he'd had one night, after he'd made sure she'd been chastened away to Paris.

"Hey stranger," she'd said as she approached, smiling and reaching for his hand as soon as she plopped down beside him in the park. She wore the jeans and scarf that she'd been in the last time he saw her and his fingers itched to touch.

He smiled and replied that he didn't think she would want to talk to him after everything. The shade laughed, released his hand and then wrapped its arms around him.

"I'll always want to talk to you."

He woke feeling twisted and rolled his die several times before trying to sleep again.

Suddenly she was always there. In every training session, in every exercise, in everything. The first time she appeared during a job he nearly panicked and needed to repeatedly calm himself. She did nothing but silently implore. He briefly considered shooting her, but found his chest twisting painfully as he raised the gun.

It didn't even speak to him all the time. It would just sit there, in the corner of his vision, watching him silently and imploring him with its eyes to come over and sit beside her. The first time he gave in and sat down beside her he was lost quickly in her hair, perfume and the sneaky little thing was quickly wound up in his arms and he was sure that if he kept kissing her he'd lose himself much like Cobb did.

Her favourite was to walk up behind him, slip her arms around his waist and press herself against him in a backward sort of hug. She'd sigh softly into his shoulder blade and because it was a dream he'd hear it so very acutely. He'd learned to shoot himself before she'd managed to slip around to his front and place light kisses at his collar. It was too much like their time in L.A. for him to be able to tolerate it.

He was thankful she did not interfere the way that Mal had interfered with their missions. She would be there, and beckon him over and without fail would look wounded when he sent her a small head shake, _I'm sorry_, and _not now_, and _I can't do this _caught thickly in his mouth. He would watch the subtle changes in her as she realized he wasn't coming over. The slight hardening of her face before the corners of her mouth would turn downwards and her eyes would soften and glisten. He imagined it could recall all the times he'd denied it before (if he was going to construct _her_ he knows he would have put his best effort into a recreation of her capacities, memories and feelings) and would feel like a monster before refocusing himself on the single-mindedness of the job.

When Eames caught sight of her in one mission he'd at first sent Arthur a pointed look and mouthed _"What is she doing here?"_ It took Eames another moment to realize that the Ariadne he was seeing was a projection rather than the genuine article and Arthur had the decency to look like he's been caught doing a very bad thing.

Later, Eames would refill the Arthur's empty tumbler with scotch and get him to again repeat what had been happening the past year. That Ariadne had been permanently affixed in his dreamscape and he believed it was mostly his own doing.

"And by _"it's all my fault"_ what exactly do you mean darling?" Asked Eames, taking a sip from his own tumbler and leaning back in his chair.

"I… I didn't follow the rules after L.A." Arthur slurred, one hand gripping the tumbler while the other slid through his hair. Eames waited patiently for a moment and then gestured with his own glass for Arthur to continue. Arthur shifted uncomfortably and took another swig, wincing. It was not his choice of liquor.

"She had decided to take a few days in L.A. before returning to Paris. I helped her book the tickets before we even got on the first plane…Told her she could do whatever she wanted after the Fisher job."

"And did she?"

Arthur snorted into his glass and nodded.

"I ended up calling her. I knew where she was staying…Of course I did, I booked it." Arthur loosened his tie, took another swig and continued. "And she was so damn pleased about everything. About the Fisher, about Cobb and about thirty seconds worth of a non-reality kiss and me standing in her doorway."

Arthur placed his now empty glass on the table between them and looked Eames directly in the face, silently challenging him to refill it. Eames made no move for the bottle and instead gestured for Arthur to continue.

"It was…a nice week," Arthur admitted. "About four days in I considered booking a ticket for Paris myself…And then I remembered Dom. I remembered that you don't sleep with your co-workers and that she had a life outside of this and when it was time to get on the plane I told her to concentrate on her studies and that I wished her the best."

"Ah."

"Miles tells me she graduated top of her class and may or may not be working for a team in Barcelona doing research. I'm not keeping track."

"And now she's running round in your dreamscape."

"Precisely," which came out a bit more warbled than Arthur intended.

"Well then you've just got to get her out of there now don't you?" replied Eames. Arthur raised his eyebrows.

"I've tried. Talking, begging. I shot her once but that was terrible, she bled out slowly and I didn't know how to deal with the crying and I couldn't shoot her again. Big failure there."

"It happens," murmured Eames. Arthur snorted and refilled his glass himself.

"So I am at am impasse Mr. Eames," replied Arthur. Eames paused and appeared to be carefully constructing and filtering his next sentence.

"I saw her in July," admitted Eames, Arthur raised his eyebrows. "She was in New York, killing time after a mission when I ran into her at a café. She's an architect for hire and bored out of her skull."

"Of course she would be."

"She says they have her designing cardboard boxes in comparison to what we asked of her."

Arthur smiled wistfully and shrugged. "We don't have a job right now and there are plenty of good architects. I don't think she'd particularly take the call."

Eames paused and placed heavy emphasis in his voice. "I just think, you should start at the basics. If calling her, even for a job relieves a little bit of the guilt; which is what I suspect this is once we look at the bare bones, then eventually apologising with be cathartic. At least, if we believe a smidge of what Cobb has been saying all these years it will be."

"If."

After finishing the bottle of scotch, Eames helped a very intoxicated Arthur to bed, removed his shoes and mentally catalogued that a sleepy Arthur with admit more things that just a simply drunk Arthur. Like how beautiful she was when she woke and that _maybe_ he missed her.

Ariadne was sore. She shifted gently in her bed, trying not to aggravate her shoulder further and frowned deeply when she realized that at some point in the night she had reopened the wound and blood had gotten on her sheets. The chemist she had been working with had known his way around a first aid kit, but he wasn't particularly good with stitches and she had been a rough sleeper lately. The dried blood on the sheets taunted her.

Her employer had shot her when she expressed some concern over the moral ambiguity of the particular mission.

She was currently expressing some ambiguity over the current safety of Paris and the bed she was sleeping in. Things get out of hand sometimes, she reassured herself.

"I should go back to Madrid," she murmured to the ceiling and squeezed her eyes shut. Barcelona had been fruitful for a while. She'd enjoyed the research for the time being and it certainly made Miles proud, but she'd found herself aching for the more daring aspects of dreams. Madrid had been a quiet vacation away from research while she gathered her head and tried to figure out what she really wanted in life. She chose thievery and intrigue and found herself bouncing from team to team. It reminded her of_ him_ though which is a down-point in her professional choice.

So here she was, in her Paris apartment, wounded and feeling like her pride had been trampled on.

Sitting up in bed, Ariadne ripped off the covers and quickly promised herself that she would be ready and packed and in an airport in an hour. She showered quickly, taking care not to make herself bleed further. The air in the shower smell sweet and mild thanks to the soap and Ariadne was already beginning to miss the comforts of living in her own apartment rather than in hotel rooms.

She began ruminating over continents and cities. Tokyo was nice, but a bit too bright and busy for how she was feeling. Sydney was too warm at this time of year. Rome and London both felt too close. L.A. always felt taboo after the Fisher job.

She sighed.

"New York then?" She asked herself. She liked it well enough, she'd accidently run into Eames the last time she was there and the people themselves paid her little attention.

"New York, then Toronto?" she continued.

She dries herself and quickly dresses stuffing her bag with what she would consider her essential travel outfits. A smile and a small laugh bubble forth from her as she realizes her criteria for clothing mainly consists of bright, professional and easy to run in. She folds her scarves delicately and places them into a mesh pocket in the suitcase.

There was something about the pockets themselves that reminded her of Arthur in a roundabout way. Nothing as direct as Arthur is a mesh pocket, but something more along the lines of the compartmentalization of things.

Even after all this time she found it difficult to compartmentalize him. She found herself over the last year trying to place him in little boxes in her mind (cad, lover, missed) but always found that his characteristics spilled out and it was impossible to characterize him as a singular thing.

_Arthur._

She's in her hotel room in New York before she calls Miles to check in with him. It was a rule of his, unbreakable in even the direst of circumstances. She was to call, and let him know that she wasn't dead and being hidden away in a dumpster somewhere in Calcutta. He makes her promise this to him the day she tells him that she's leaving Barcelona. Rather than being smothered, Ariadne feels loved, and it's the first time she'd felt that way in months.

So she calls.

"What do you mean the job went wrong?" Miles asked carefully. "…Yes, I expect you won't be returning to Paris for quite some time, but what do you mean by the job went _wrong_?"

Dom has just entered the room after putting James to bed when he hears his father-in-law on the phone. He mouths _"Who is it?"_ to which Miles mouths _"Ariadne"._ Dom frowns and gestures to the speaker phone button to which Miles shakes his head.

"You're all right then? ... Do you think that anyone is following you? ..."

Later, when Arthur visits California, Dom says "The architect got herself shot in Paris," and Arthur chokes on the lemonade he'd been sipping. They are standing on the porch and Arthur can see Miles raise an eyebrow at Dom relaying this information to him.

"Really? Seriously injured?" He questions lightly, trying to keep his voiced calm and level.

"Enough to convince her to leave Europe for the time being. "

"Where is she then?"

"New York for now."

"Huh," replies Arthur. He asks Dom for her phone number and later that night when he dreams her brow is furrowed and he lets her hold his hand. They traipse through the dreamscape together and Arthur is only minutely aware that upon waking and the plane landing they could actually be doing this soon.

He is in New York and sitting in the lobby of her hotel before he's able to really reason with himself. He knows the room number (1205), and that he should bring flowers (but the ones he's looked at today didn't seem to amount to the magnitude of _I'm sorry I hurt you_, or _how ever did you get shot but I'm so glad you're alive_) but ends up sitting empty handed and waiting for some indication that he should get up and head towards the elevators.

The sun starts setting before he moves and the ride up is long and he uses the time to reflect back on his choices that led him here.

The elevator doors ding open and he walks with purpose down the hall, faltering only when he passed room 1204 and realizing that he hadn't planned anything beyond this moment. However, he could hypothesis a few outcomes.

He would knock on her door and she wouldn't open it for him.

He could tell her he was sorry and say there was a job coming up. He'd pull one from thin air if he had too.

He'd be hugged and it would be better than the lousy imitation that's plagued him for months.

Arthur takes another step forward to realize he hasn't considered the ideal outcome, which feels wildly uncharacteristic of him. Or even how he could procure an ideal outcome. He's not sure of what to say and how he wants this venture to end.

He's not sure what his escape plan is either. He stills in the hallway and feels that this is all too much and he needs to get out and regroup. He turns around gingerly and takes a series of measured steps back towards the elevators. His hand taps the button gently and over and over in his head he repeats to himself that it's better to come back after he's regrouped. The elevator door dings open and he steps in and allows the doors to close. He pushes the ground floor button and waits patiently and the elevator descends.

He decides on giving himself twenty-four hours to figure out what he wants and if he couldn't figure that out he was leaving this all alone. His measured steps continue as they reach the pavement and he resists looking backwards at the hotel and letting his gaze stumble upward towards what he assumes is her window.

He determinedly makes his way towards her door when he notices that it is ajar. Cautiously he presses his hand against the door and opens it over slowly. Inside the bright room is a hotel maid, clearly cleaning a room which the resident has checked out of.

Two hours later he is sipping black coffee as he walks down the street (brooding), and something clicks. He's a Point Man, he knows how to do his job and if he really wants to (and he does) he can find her. It isn't impossible. It only runs the risk of taking more time than he's comfortable taking.

She's in his dreams again that night, but something is off, different even. She seems less solid a realization than before.

He returns to California and finds her sitting on the porch with Phillipa. He steps onto the porch and she angles her head to just catch him out of the corner of her eye. Arthur suddenly feels nervous and his hand snakes into his pocket and he grasps the die.

"I didn't want to come here, but Miles and Dom insisted," she murmured softly, staring out at the scenery rather than at him as he sat down. "Seems they couldn't get it through their heads that there could be people chasing me, and there are children here."

"Then why did you come?" He asked gently.

"The plan ticket had already been bought by the time they called me and there was that whole fatherly concern in both of their voices and I'm just a sucker when Miles plays that card. I got myself shot in Paris." She admitted.

"I'd heard. How'd you manage it?"

"A healthy dose of stupidity combined with questioning orders. I know the general illegality of what we do but I got caught up in a bad crowd and didn't realize how bad till about ten minutes before they shot me."

"I blame myself, stupidity is contagious," he replies and catches a small quirk of her lips before it turns into a reluctant smile and she turns her head so that it is a bit more out of his view. He feels it's a small victory. "I wanted to go to Paris with you."

She nods quickly and slightly and replies that yes, she knows, that regardless of what he said to her at the airport she knows. "I'd realized what had happened about 3 weeks after the fact. Then I didn't call you because I was terribly angry with you and then once I wasn't angry I just didn't know how to call you and say _'Hey, bout that time you left me at the airport…' _then life got...hectic."

He nods and watches Phillipa colour in some buildings that Ariadne has scrawled out on paper for her. The lines and ink splatters are so familiar to him and for a moment it's almost like the past year had been just a ripple in time and instead of becoming a coward in L.A. they had just stopped here on the way to another city. He berates himself for wasting a year of their lives.

"I'd like to try again," she admits, turning her face towards him and her face is open and free from malice. His heart stops momentarily.

"I'd like to too," he answers and the reluctant smile returns to her face and she is suddenly shy.

A week or so later they are in Montreal and Arthur has his hands threaded into her hair and she has fallen asleep against him, exhausted from Arthur's physical reiterations that yes, he loves her.

When he sleeps, his dreams are empty.


End file.
